I've gone gold. I'm very excited.
One of the things I liked so much about the women artists I saw in Nashville was that they were appreciated for their music and their talent, not because they were wearing skimpy outfits and showing a lot of skin.
I studied classical piano from the time I was 4 through my first year of college.
I studied jazz in college. I studied music history, and I have a degree in music engineering.
I love music with my soul, but I'm also a student of it, so it's very important to me to earn the respect of my peers, my fellow musicians and producers.
I was not ready fresh out of high school to hit the streets of Nashville.
The biggest impact that acting and theater had was, of course, stage presence, but it also had a big impact on my writing.
I really wanted a No. 1 single from my first album, but I would not do anything different. It was real and honest and I didn't pretend anything.
I think in order to find your audience and let them get to know you, you have to introduce yourself a little at a time.
I want to be able to take singles, serve them up to radio on a silver platter and just have them smoke - just obvious great-sounding, great-feeling radio singles.
My career has been two steps forward and three steps back.
Leaving your old record label doesn't have to be a stall in your career. It's like new life being breathed into it.
I'd spent a year and a half without a record deal and had been doing a lot of soul-searching, a lot of self-examination and a lot of experimentation in other musical forms.
I have a fan base. I've sold a million albums in country music. I've got fans out there who love my music and would like to hear more.
Music does communicate across language and racial and religious and philosophical barriers. It is one of the most distilled forms of human emotions.
The most rewarding experience as a musician is to know that I moved people personally.
Chuck is definitely my favorite co-writer, and my best. It is really hard to make yourself vulnerable enough for somebody to get inside your head while songwriting. Chuck and I find writing together very non-competitive and just really easy.
